Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Gage
I’d say this feels like old times, but it doesn’t.
The woman sitting on my sofa has been to hell and back on a ticket bought and paid for by me.
I destroyed her heart five years ago.
I can’t even begin to imagine the full impact that my decision to leave had on her.
Yet, here she is.
She’s open to more. I sense it in her kiss and the way she looks at me.
I open the bottle of wine and pour the deep red liquid into the only two wine glasses I own.
I live with few things.
The bulk of the furniture in here came with the place.
I have half of a closet of clothes, a few pairs of shoes, and a dozen or so pictures of my daughter.
Two are hanging in frames in the hallway. There’s another on the wall in my bedroom. It’s of the two of us. Kristin is sitting in my lap, looking up at me.
I stand in front of that picture and pray to the heavens above on a daily basis. My plea is always the same. I want time with my daughter. I want a chance to watch her grow up. I want her to fall asleep in the second bedroom down the hall.
I didn’t bother placing any of the framed photos in the living room. I’m rarely in there. Most of my time at night is spent asleep or at the bar.
I fill daylight hours working out, doing administrative work at Tin Anchor or stuck in the armchair in my bedroom reading books.
It’s a quiet existence. I see it as a bridge to what I really want.
A month ago that bridge took me to a future where I could see my daughter whenever I want. That’s changed since I walked into Katie Rose Bridal.
I have no fucking idea if my life here is going to be uprooted and replanted in London, but I do know that I need to consider Katie in all of this.
It’s presumptuous, but I sense that she’s feeling something for me that mirrors what was in her heart before I broke up with her.
“Are you burning the shrimp scampi again?” Katie asks from where she’s sitting on my sofa.
I glance over at her. She’s peering over her shoulder at me. Her long hair is tumbling down her back.
She’s a vision; a picture of innocence and bravery.
The most beautiful woman alive is what I see when I look at her.
“I burned it once.” I laugh. “I would have thought you forgot about that by now.”
She smiles. “I haven’t forgotten anything, Gage.”
Neither have I.
I remember everything including the way she mewls when I suck on her clit and the claw of her fingernails down my back when I’m driving my dick into her.
I want that tonight.
I need it.
I hope to hell that she wants it too.
She stopped herself after half a glass of wine.
I admit I was grateful. I wasn’t looking for a repeat of the other night when the martinis melted her common sense.
I know if she would have been stone cold sober that night that I wouldn’t have made it past the doorman of her building.
I want to win her over on a level playing field. I don’t need the advantage that alcohol brings.
“I liked the dinner,” she admits. “You can still cook shrimp scampi.”
I mastered a few meals back in California.
I upped my kitchen game in Nashville when I became a dad.
The nights I had Kristin, I’d cook for her. The kid may have requested macaroni and cheese at every turn, but I broadened her culinary horizon.
By the time she was seven-years-old, seafood topped her request list followed by an array of vegetarian dishes.
One of the things I miss most about being shut out of my little girl’s life is the moments spent in the kitchen cooking with her.
“Will Kristin be coming for a visit soon?” Katie’s gaze shifts from my face to the half-full wine glass in front of her.
The woman is a mind reader.
She noticed me slipping into my thoughts. I’m not surprised that she instinctively knew that I was thinking about my daughter.
“I hope so.”
I want her here in New York so I can take her to the observation deck on the top of the Empire State Building and a matinee of a Broadway musical.
Visiting Manhattan is on Kristin’s bucket list.
It’s well below meeting her favorite musician and getting a tattoo, but there are only so many dreams a dad can make come true.
“I’d like to meet her,” Katie says quietly. “I like kids a lot.“
I pop a brow. “I saw that when you were holding your friend’s baby.”
She lets out a sigh. “I love Arleth. I could hold her for hours.”
“She looked peaceful in your arms.”
Katie’s hand moves to the back of her neck. “We’ve both changed a lot since we broke up.”
I know where this is heading, so I don’t stop her. I let her say what she needs to say.
“I think about being a mom.” Her voice catches in her throat. I watch her swallow past something. I’d call it nerves since I witnessed firsthand the stress she was under in college and I’ve seen this reaction from her dozens of times. “Being a mom isn’t what I thought it was.”
“Olivia taught you differently?” I ask to lessen the weight that she’s carrying.
She’s trying to tell me that she’s softened her stance on having kids. I’m not surprised. Time changes a person. It sure as hell changed me.
“Do you like being a dad?” She shifts the focus to me. I’ll gladly grab the baton if it helps her ease into whatever she’s feeling.
“I love it,” I answer without a beat of hesitation. “It’s everything.”